The other day me mum had an excellent craving -- she wanted pineapple and a coconut-based curry. She was going to put something together and bring it to me for lunch the next day, but she didnt get a chance to. Instead she brought me a can of pineapple, a can of coconut milk and a tin of red curry paste(mind you don't get one with shrimp and/or fish sauce!!!) I added a can of black beans, a bell pepper, and some soy sauce and came up with something truly excellent!!

Thai-influenced Coconut-pineapple Curry
1 can coconut milk (14.5 oz, or something like that)
1 15-oz can pineapple (more or less, to taste)
1 can black beans
1 4 oz tin or several tablespoons of your favorite thai red curry paste (mind you don't get shrimp and/or fish and/or other seafood nasties!!!!)
1 green bell pepper, cut into bite-size pieces
a couple tablespoons of soy sauce

I made this in the microwave; mum did something very similar on the stove, so either way works. I'll give the micro directions, but i bet you can figure it out for the stove ;-).

Pour the coconut milk in a large microwave-safe bowl and mix in the curry paste. Mix well, until it is homogeneous. Dump in the black beans, pineapple, green pepper, and soy sauce. Mix well.

Stick in the micro for 3 minutes. Stir it; it will probably need a little while longer. Put it back in for an appropriate amount of time (I think I did another minute. Then maybe 30 second increments until it was done to my satisfaction. (sorry, i did this yesterday and didn't write it down...)) Stir and serve over fresh, hot rice. Add extra soy sauce/sriracha as desired. Enjoi!!

2 Posts in one day!!! VeganMoFo is surely upon us!

As I have mentioned several times before, peanut sauce is one of my favorite things, and I have several different varieties that I make on a semi-regular basis. Paired with some lovely steamed vegetables, fresh rice, and some tofu, it makes a perfect meal.

I also discovered over the summer the most delightful way of steaming broccoli to perfection: in the microwave! The results were so good that I started regularly cooking my broccoli this way, even with a full kitchen available. This also happens to be incredibly convenient when in the dorm! In general, chop up your broccoli into florets, put 'em in a big (microwaveable) bowl, add 2 tablespoons water (or soy sauce, vinegar, wine, etc), cover well and zap for 3-4 minutes. Ta Da! perfectly stemaed broccoli. Experiment with times to get it just the way you want it and, of course, microwave ovens vary....

Gingery Broccoli with Chinese Peanut Sauce

Chinese Peanut Sauce
1/2 c Peanut butter (I like crunchy, but creamy works well too)
1/2 c boiling, or at least hot, H2O
1-2 Tbs Soy sauce (Today I used a packet I got with takeout, because I forgot to get soy sauce at the grocery)
1-2 Tbs sugar
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
cayenne powder, to taste
dried chili flakes, to taste

Put the peanut butter in a bowl with the minced garlic and pour the hot water over. Mix this well with a fork until it is a uniform mixture. Mix in the soy sauce, sugar, and cayenne, tasting after adding each and adjusting to suit. It's fine to eat this right away, but it's really better if you let it cool down to room temp, it gets a better texture. You can jsut stick it in the fridge, and then heat it up if it gets too cold.

This will probably make more peanut sauce than needed for a single batch of broccoli. Double the broccoli, add tofu or other veggies, or save for later. This is also delicous over noodles, salad, or pretty much anything...

Gingery Broccoli
Broccoli, lots of it.... I think I used just shy of a pound... Pretty much as much as you can fit in your biggest microwaveable bowl.
1-1/2 Tbs soy sauce (I used 2 packets of soy sauce from takeout)
2 tsp mustard (I used 1 packet of mustard from chinese takeout)
1-2 tsp minced fresh ginger (could probably sprinkle some powdered ginger instead... whatever.)
water

Chop the broccoli into florets and put it in a big ol' microwaveable bowl. Toss in your ginger. Mix the soy sauce and mustard together, then pour it over the broccoli. Add another 1 Tbs or so of water to the mix, cover well and stick it in the microwave for 3-4 minutes. Check it; zap for a little longer if you need to.

Serve like this: Rice<Broccoli<Peanut Sauce

Eat.

Be happy. XD

Growing up, one of most common recipes in my mom's repertoire was Barbeque Chicken and Rice, a recipe she got from my grandma (dad's mum). I thought it was alright as a kid, but she made it a lot, and I quite frankly got sick of it... Fast forward a decade or so. I am vegan and craving... BBQ Chicken&Rice??

I thought it was pretty strange, especially since it was never a favourite or anything, and even mom stopped making it ages ago, since everyone got sick of it (not just me). I then had a burst of inspiration -- I had recently discovered baking tofu and realized that this would make a perfect "chicken" substitute. The result was better than I remember that chicken recipe -- even mom had some and approved.

Although this was a great success at home, I was afraid that baked tofu was outside of my reach while at school, having no oven here in the dorm, but my roommate recently got a toaster oven (technically verboten in the dorm, but oh well) and I tried (tonight) using it, and it turned out perfectly! Baked tofu as described in the recipe below is perfect for just about anything. It's much healthier than frying and still gives a crisp, chewy outside to the tofu cubes. It's great for stirfries (add towards the end, after it's baked), sandwiches, dipping in peanut sauce, or anytime you'd want deep-fried tofu.

BBQ Tofu & Rice

1 block firm or x-firm tofu
2 c cooked brown rice
1/4 c good barbeque sauce (check to make sure it's vegan.. but i've never had a problem with this...) (also, add more to taste, if you like)

Drain tofu, wrap it in a kitchen towel and press under a couple heavy cans. Let it press for a half hour, or at least until the oven's preheated. (Now would be a good time to start the rice, if you don't have any made yet.)  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204 Celsius).

When the oven is preheated, line a baking sheet with non-stick aluminum foil(can use cooking spray) and cut the tofu into cubes. ( I need to post a diagram for how i usually cut mine.. it's just too hard to describe in words.. But you all know what cubes look like and how you like your tofu) Arrange the cubes on the baking sheet so that they all have a little room to breathe (none are touching one another).

Put it in the oven and bake until the cubes are golden and look delicious. It's been a while, but I think in my oven at home it took like 35-45 minutes. In the toaster oven here it only took 20. Keep an eye on them the first time you do it and find your own time. (Should be at least 20 though..)

When tofu is golden brown and delicious, remove from oven. Reduce oven heat to 350 F(177 C). Make a layer of rice in the bottom of a square 8x8 or 9x9 glass baking dish. Arrange the tofu on top in an evenly distributed layer. Pour BBQ sauce over all, once more attempting to cover evenly.  My measurements for rice and BBQ sauce may be kind of off; I based my numbers on what I did just now and extrapolating out some... Basically make a layer of rice (however much that takes), a layer of tofu, and then cover it all in barbeque sauce. Toss this in the oven for 20 minutes or so... time to make sure everything gets hot and delicious and for the barbeque to coagulate some. (If you wanted to prepare this ahead of time and refrigerate it, I'd cover it in aluminum foil, bake it for 35-45 mins, remove the al foil, bake for 10-15 min more... or something like that)

Enjoy!

Also, you can skip that whole baking as a casserole part at the end, and just serve the tofu on rice topped with bbq; that's what I did tonight because I don't have a baking dish that fits in the toaster oven...

Alright, so tonight's meal is what this blog was created for. I had a hankering, but I wasn't sure what for... I looked around at what I had, whipped something up and it was delicious! I kind of wanted sushi, but didn't have any veggies and wasn't quite up to waiting and rolling and all that nonsense (which really isn't bad, i was just real hungry and tired lol). Here's what I did:

Wasabi Tofu

botan rice, freshly made (or whatever you like...)
1 package silken tofu (regular tofu would be fine, silken's just what I had, and it always strikes me as Japanese-tasting, whcih was the taste-scape I was going for)
Soy sauce
rice wine vinegar
wasabi powder


While the rice was cooking, I sliced the tofu, sprinkled it with wasabi powder, and poured over some soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. (Probably about 2 tsps soy sauce, and about a tsp of vinegar) I then mixed up some extra wasabi paste. When the rice is done,  put it in a bowl,  toss it with some rice vinegar, and dump the contents of the tofu bowl on top. I had to add a little bit more of everything as I was eating it, but I always doctor up my food as I eat -- it's the best part!